Dark

well that was fun! it was great meeting you all; we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and intend to do so more often. many thanks to y'all for making it happen. also thanks to tim for the guppies and everyone else for the advice, food etc... demi and i are more than likely to join kapimana - you have been warned

and the virus evolves to a whole new level i bet the flu is taking notes on this one.

...i want to be a fish when i grow up... after looking through the saltwater forums for a while, surfing some links, reading another forum site, looking at more pics and surfing those links, i have concluded that i need a larger house, bigger salary, and a personal stand-by team of fish consultants - wait... i have you guys!!

i'm glad that my partner is into the fish thing! "if you get a cichlid tank then i get an axolotyl tank, and you know that tank you want in the living room? well i want one in the hallway" i like this...

*swimmmmmm* i don't know. i have been doing fish for about 10 years but only recently did i become a fish geek. i think i'll do a little breeding, a little growing, and make some nice display tanks, like one to put on the servery 'twixt my kitchen and dining room (where spoony the ghost knife will live). as for the rest of them, i might sell them off cheaply or auction a pile of them - i didn't think that far ahead really... although i really want a big trickle filter... and its probably more like 30 tanks...

sounds like you have the bug! i have 7 tanks at the moment and my neighbour has just re-glassed his conservatory so i'm building another hundred or so from those, then i'll have to take over his garage as well as the rest of my lounge and study. i think i'll dig a basement... yeah! i wonder if i can train my fish to do that so i can concentrate... *at this point Dark was wrestled to the ground by an expert crack team of orderlies and put back in his padded cell* ...i wonder if this padding is waterproof...

i think its a shortage at the suppliers - because i ate it all

i think thats rather ironic really... :roll: there must me something else that can asthetically replace dear old val. i was reading a book that describes val as a completlely different plant - heightwize - gigantas only apparently grows to about 2 feet long, ther others even shorter. there was also confusion because eelgrass (which MAF rekons is val) is described as another type of plant altogether - same physical properties but greater tendancy to flower and physically much longer. this of course contradicts much information i have read on val from other sources, mainly web, but again some of those resources do not always agree with each other. not that i'm any form of authority but do they have the right plant? whatever the case i know i'm growing the one that they are banning *sigh* so i guess i'm heading home to rip it all out. i'll do some colaboration of references tonight and post them to clarify my vague descriptions.

My workmate does not understand – she thinks we are having a fish BBQ and that we will be taking along our beloved pets in tinfoil – need I say more?

like its ability to hold water? :lol: i have a couple of tanks like that - seriously awaiting payday, then we can get a new silicon gun and some glue. advantages to having a garage - when i built my 600l i built it in the living room at my last flat - the room was modestly larger than the tank

good point. i guess though that, splashing aside, when water evapourates it leaves salt behind. in either case a good dose of galvanising combined with a good primer and then powder coating would fix that. not that far out of the way becuase one would probably want the reinforcing looking presentable if it is going to be in plain sight. the problems come when trying to calculate the size of the bracing needed around the edges - the size of each side of the angle and the thickness of the metal is based on the amount of weight the support needs to hold. if it gets too big it starts to defeat the purpose. Warren - you mentioned using a CAD - did you use it for the calculations and, if so, how useful did you find it?

everyone in hamilton i talked to a few weeks ago thinks vallisneria is a dirty word. after managing to find the MAF list of unwanted organisms i found out that local body councils are able to ban whatever in heck they like as long as it is not contrary to nationwide belief. i do have some idea why they are worried - i had some val in a sealed bucket without heating or light for about 3 weeks and it managed to survive enough to grow up again. perhaps we should start an initiative to educate people on the safe ownership of these plants, although i have fears that if MAF get involved that we would have to incenerate our waste water and have inspections every 6 months or something. i can only guess that wellington will not get the ban as fast as the rest of the country if it is done on a regional basis - where i live the closest major waterway is the hutt river, about 30 km away, all our storm and waste water ends up in the sea, and most of our smaller waterways have been piped underground. if possible i'll keep growing it... - just don't tell them where i live!

I'm wondering if it would make more sense to reinforce the top of larger tanks with metal angle-braces. this could provide a completley open top with nothing to get in the way of heat or hands and a serious increase in strength. any cross bracing could be tiny and therefore unobstructive... i will be replacing the top centre support of my 1400l/600w/700h - for the mean time i have decided to double the thickness of the support and hope that it provides enough gluing area for the damn thing to stay in there and do its job. any comments on the subject well appreciated

just thought i'd mention: i have been thinking about this subject a lot over the past week or so as i have a tank that is in need of a support replacement before i fill it all the way up and it resumes its normal duties. i have talked to a number of people and reviewed what is now seeming like thousands of websites in order to find more definitave information on the subject of building a tank. i think i'm actually writing a thesis, or a treatise or something... i'll keep you posted, or rather, i'll post something... yeah *too tired*

sure it should not be called 'heart attack on a spoon'?

i'm sitting here in kingston hoping that you are all still with us if you went out - the wind is so strong you can taste the cook straight spray and i have had to tie almost everything down, even considered the car...

>> I understand feeding seahorses can be very time consuming! and that grooming them is even harder (we'll i've never heard any seahorse jokes before) um... welcome to the show Alisha i definatly agree with you on the "finally we have a great fish forum in NZ" comment

someone once told me that Pacu were illegal to keep in NZ fact or fiction?

i think the accessability was key - because i am in the habit of purchasing one or two plants then growing a forest from those ir really did not matter where they came from. the fish is really the same although i got into breeding after they closed...

*produces a shopping list and holds out his hand hopefully* My first fish was called snapper - he was a feisty 'lil brown goldfish that i caught in the heretaunga stream in havelock north - a few years before they had the carp infestation, 1989 if i recall correctly... it has always been a habit, i'll blame my parents, to name pets. dogs, cats, birds, rabbits and fish alike i guess. The problem seems to come when there are lots of them, hence group names for shoals, but i think it is because i see characteristics in fish that end up getting named. i have quite a few unremarkable gourami who, whilst being contributing members of the community, have never done anything to earn a title greater than 'that pearl gourami over there' or 'the one that keeps banging into the end of the tank when you open the living room door'. cochlean is my favourite fish ever - i recently put him into his own tank where he is boss, and he is now more lively than ever - if i had not named him 'spoony' because the last one was called 'knifey' i would have to think of a name for him in order to relate to his constant presense when i am cooking myself food. of course i could call them all 'fishy' but that is like calling all your friends 'man' - (a habit i'm desperatly trying to get out of)

it would seem that all of my fish end up with names after a while - mostly because it is easier to say to people 'the big one that is sucking on the glass is called hoover' rather than trying to teach them how to pronounce plecostomus. the names and reasons are: banjo - ramius - was put in the tank and sunk straight to the bottom without moving (Hunt for the Red October) plecostomus - hoover delongi moulinex - named after every vacume cleaner in the house for his outstanding algae sucking capabilities, guests try to call him mcJagger because of his huge lips bristlenose plec male - bristleton - no prizes for guessing bristlenose plec female - plecette - ditto port hoplos (all of them) - cthulhu - reminded me of a picture from a comic i once read , small beady eyes, tentacles etc... and they live underwater... dunno, but calling them all is dangerous (cthulhu,cthulhu,cthulhu...) argh help its eating my soul! achem... tetras (any/all) - killer attack fish - i find it amusing to convince those who do not know/are gullable that they are the most dangerous fish i have - demonstrated by their ability to destroy flake food in a series of viciously small bites black ghost knife - cochlean - derived from the latin word for spoon (by derived i mean i forgot how to spell it) cochlean or 'spoony' as we sometimes call him is the only son of knifey and mrs X, both unfortunatly deceased due to a stupid flatmate. cochlean enjoys eating bugs, looking at what we are doing in the kitchen, and trying to make friends with ramius. and the tadpoles are all called madpole thanks to my daughter. the rest ofthe cast and crew of my underwater masterpiece shall remain loved but nameless. what was that you said about them needing counselling Alan?

bugger, looks like i got the dates wrong... still, nice thought!

it sounds like SH1 heading north out of wellington is going to be completly overrun with fishy people on sunday! if i have to drive past one activity to get to the other one... well, why not indeed

well you can count me in, but be gentle - its my first time

that almost makes me sad - especially because i lived about 5 minutes walk from it at the time.